Egypt in October: On again, off again. Should I hold out or punt?
 

DW and I were planning a trip to Egypt in October, had made several contacts, had an itinerary and a local tour operator, but had not yet made any deposits. Then the "revolution" started so we backed off.
At this point, we are not inclined to continue planning, but we are reluctant to give up on the trip.
OTH, if we decide to go somewhere else this October/November, we need to start thinking about that.
So we are a bit torn. (It would be very good for the people, I would think, to get the tourist industry up and running again ASAP.)
It is probably not possible to predict when travel to Egypt would become practical again. Sooner? Later? Who's to say?
Does anyone have any thoughts on when it will be "OK" (however you define that) to again travel to Egypt, or is this just way to early in the game to contemplate?
Love to hear some thoughts.

If if helps - many of the expats who were evacuated are heading back next week - including families.

I would go ahead and plan it, but first shop around for some type of trip insurance to cover you in case there is another uprising of some sort between now and then. I think it will be OK but I would buy the insurance anyway.

We are in exactly the same position, but trip dates are for December / January. As a precaution we have changed our return flights (to Australia) to fly home from Istanbul rather than Cairo (we are flying into Paris and this will be the tail end of a longer trip). Now we are just sitting back and waiting for a while. If we opt to do Jordana and Egypt as per original plans, we will find a separate flight back to Istanbul. If we decide Egypt is not going to happen we will fall back to plan B (which at the moment looks like it will be either Jordan and Turkey or otherwise Morocco and Turkey. While we are looking at Plan B options, we too are reluctant to give up on the long planned Egypt trip. A difficult dilemma, but I think we have some time on our side.

I don't think that you have to do anything right now about Egypt. We only made our plans in mid-November for a two week trip in the first two Weeks of February 2010. February is normally high tourist season in Egypt and it still was not a problem. The entire trip, including airfare on Egypt Air from New York direct to Cairo, was done through STI-Travel in New Jersey. I told them what we wanted to see, the agent sent me a proposed plan and price, plan was tweeked, and the whole
deal was done. By the way, we put the trip on our credit card so we did not have to make a transfer of funds to Egypt for a deposit.

Pat

I would wait and see when/if these elections take place. That is very uncertain now. Also you will no doubt get a very good deal as it will take the tourist sector a long time to recover. It is unlikely you will find insurance to cover this type of situation. Also booking to a country that has a State Dept. or other warning usually invalidates the insurance if done after the warning is issued...just wait. I know that is not what the guides/tour companies want to hear but my opinion.

Yeah, that's kind of where we are. It might be next year before we go to Egypt. Elections were originally to be in Sept, now it appears the military wants to expedite that. Still, much uncertainty prevails. And you're right. No trip insurance will work.
Ah, well. Reviewing the bucket list for Plan B, but will keep the options open for a while.

Yes, the travel insurance is an issue. I was looking into it yesterday and one really needs to read the findprint!